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Posted by Dylan Malyasov on
March 21, 2019

A pair of Russian fighter jets conducted an intercept of U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress bomber over international waters of the Baltic Sea.

On Wednesday, in Russian social media was released images showed ‘intercept’ of U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress bomber (US Air Force number 61-0013, short side number “1013”, code “LA”, callsign AERO32) assigned to the 2nd Bomb Wing.

Two Russian jets SU-27 have forced a US B-52H bomber to move away from the Russian border, the Defense Ministry told the media on Thursday.

The B-52 was flying over international waters of the Baltic Sea. Russia’s air space control means identified it far away from the border and put it under observation.

Two SU-27 jets of the air defense forces were ordered to identify and escort the aircraft. After the strategic bomber B-52H changed course to move away from the Russian state border the jets returned to base, the Defense Ministry’s statement says.

According to a statement released by the U.S. Air Force, a bomber task force of B-52 Stratofortresses, airmen and support equipment from the 2nd Bomb Wing based out of Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, arrived at RAF Fairford late last week and has been participating in various training missions across Europe, according to the service.

“These missions have been closely coordinated with the governments of the respective countries and the NATO Enhanced Forward Presence units operating there,” said in a statement.

The aircraft arrived in theater on March 14-15 and are temporarily operating out of RAF Fairford. The deployment of strategic combers to the U.K. helps exercise RAF Fairford as the U.S. Air Forces in Europe’s forward training location for bombers.

“On Monday, four B-52s “conducted flights to several places in Europe, including to the Norwegian Sea, the Baltic Sea/Estonia and the Mediterranean Sea/Greece,” the U.S. Air Force said.

This is the largest deployment of US strategic aviation in Europe since the operation against Iraq in 2003.